Podcast archivist. It's telling that he can do this, as there's no DRM or licensing required. Can you imagine an amateur-run project to archive, say, all the radio in one city, particularly if the radio broadcast flag becomes a reality (and isn't easily cracked?).

"Controlling the means of mass distribution, it seems, isn't as important as controlling the means of mass marketing." I had this thought in the car on the way to work this morning, actually. But ultimately, it's all about filtering. In the days where broadcast reigned, the networks were vouching for quality. These days, most people have cable/satellite and the accompanying 50-100+ channels, but the networks are still big. Why? Partly the content itself and partly the fact that they vouch for quality. No one turns to those fuzzy channels at the end of the set and expects to see anything but endless reruns of Dr. Quinn (not that I'm ripping on the medicine woman, and my example isn't really current because I can count the number of hours of TV I've watched in the last half-decade on one hand). There was a discussion on an MCAT forum I read here that revealed some interesting popular conceptions about participatory content creation, as well as some rather well-thought-out ones. But the relevance here is that the question bank absolutely needed a rating system. IMDB changed the way I watch movies, because the ratings are just so darn good. I routinely decide what I'm going to rate a movie after having seen it, only to find that the collective wisdom of 10,000 other movie lovers coincides with mine to within a fraction of a point (out of 10). This makes it an extraordinary filter, and, indeed, I have seem some splendid movies I might otherwise have skipped because the horde that is IMDB rated them highly.

Analysis of declining value chain. The case of Yourmusic.com in the middle of the article is worth reading on its own.
More on leaks.

Impressive patent reform library.

The case of the missing song.

More on child pornography and attempts to link it to P2P.

"The study, expected to be released Wednesday by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, is the latest to cast doubt on the notion of sophisticated consumers in the digital age."

Lossy compression.

MS ends closed file formats for Office. It's promising that they've announced they will document the formats, but are they really just surrendering the practice that built Office to be the giant that it is? Superior import filters and inferior export filters are what allowed the franchise to grow in its early days, IIRC.

--Ari